5475A9 ARM 2.5"

Sam

Member
Hoping for a new idea on this one... Drive clicks, clacks, knocks for about 15 sec then becomes ready but ABRT when try to ID (drive stays spinning).

Heads map: 0, 1, 2, top head missing from HSA.

-Swapped heads with 2 donors with no change in symptoms
-Donor IDs with heads from patient
-No contamination on sliders
-With donor PCB without transferring ROM or NVRAM, drive makes no noise and becomes ready (won't ID of course).
-With ROM transferred to donor PCB, drive has original symptoms. With ROM and NVRAM transferred to donor PCB, drive has original symptoms.
-With H0 disabled in NVRAM, drive makes no noise and becomes ready and won't ID
-When I "update microcode" with donor resources from same FW version, drive IDs and shows donor identification but errors when trying to read any FW mods.
-Have swapped magnets.
-Have removed platters and inspected H0 surface (and all the rest). No visible media damage or debris.
-Have swapped platters to new base.

Could it be a NVRAM or ROM issue and are these able to be addressed?
 

Sam

Member
Update:

The donor heads I thought should be compatible have a 0, 1, 2, 3 head map whereas my patient has a 0, 1, 2 head map with the top head missing.
I acquired a donor that was virtually a perfect match along with same head map. After trying those heads and having the same symptoms, I revisited the possibility of media damage.
I re-examined the bottom platter surface and found a very thin scratch that went about 180 deg around the platter 2-3 mm in from the outside edge.
My conclusion is that enough of the SA was eaten away by the scratch to make this one unrecoverable.
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, media damage was my first thought. Unfortunately, it's not always visible. Too bad there isn't a better way to safely check for damage than having to just replace heads over and over until the scratch becomes visible.
 
Sam And Jared ,
I Too Wasted 2 Donors 2 Days Back In a Thin 500GB WDC 2.5" Sata Drive could not find any platter damaged with my eyes ,I had one good donor and recovered a drive ,after this i used those heads in this patient and it clicked ,Changing back these heads back to donor resulted in donor head scratching platter of donor ,Have you folks ever had a issue with head screw too tight in this 7mm wdc thin 500 Gb's .I then tried another headset with same clicking but i am yet to take out the heads and inspect them :evil:
 

Sam

Member
Amarbir--no, I don't think I have ever had a situation with too tight of a screw with any drive. My hands are internally calibrated for torque settings :D
 
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